Sound of Karakura town
by White Butterfly
Summary: Yet another Bleach drabble collection, this time focusing on people and events in Karakura town. Will include events that happened with shinigami in town AKA might include arrancar arc spoilers. Contains IchiRuki and Tatsuki-centric drabbles.
1. in limbo

**Title: **In limbo between memory and dream

**Character/Pairing:** Arisawa Tatsuki  
**Style: **Drabble  
**Genre: **General  
**Rating: **PG  
**Theme: **May 1: between the click of the light and the start of the dream

* * *

It ached, like she was sick. Her chest and legs, abdomen and lower back. Every breath felt as if it should send splinters of pain through her ribcage and her nose felt clogged and stuffy, like the time her nose had been broken and had needed setting.  
All over, her muscles felt prickly, the kind of sensation that came from exercising too much or getting hit too many times in karate. Not exactly a good feeling, nor a particularly bad one either. Just... there was something not right about the situation.  
It wasn't limited to just her body either, her mind was similar, knotted string and hard candies rattling around sorely and weirdly, hitting tender spots. Like physical bruises they reacted, flashing fragments of images and sounds instead of pain, showing scattered remains of memory of the initial injury.

The fragments were different from the what she knew and there was no way they could be true, right? There was no way she could have been thrown against a wall by something she could barely see, by something Orihime called 'Brother' and there was no possibility that Ichigo, _Ichigo_, the one who had quit from the dojo during middle school, could've come crashing through, carrying a gigantic sword and dressed in black robes.

Only dreams could be that type of weird, though who was to say a wrestler barging in through the wall wasn't?

Tatsuki's head ached from thinking. She hadn't fallen asleep that night over at Orihime's, but everything that happened, that those fragments told her happened, seemed to be parts of a dream. Half real, half truth; half forgotten, half imagined.

She wondered which was what and feared that one was the reason why she felt pain for bones that weren't broken and phantoms flickered at the edge of her sight.


	2. Pepper soulcandy

**Title: **Pepper soulcandy

**Character/Pairing:** Kurosaki Ichigo/Kuchiki Rukia  
**Style: **Drabble  
**Genre: **General  
**Rating: **G  
**Notes: **There actually was a superstition like this and it's the reason why we say 'Bless you'.

* * *

"Here." Rukia thrust some ground pepper under Ichigo's nose, causing him to sneeze and catapult his spirit form out of his body.

"Eh? How does that work?" he stared down at wonder at his body lying on the floor behind him before patting down his spirit form.  
Rukia, instead of answering, grabbed his hand and hauled him along, checking her soul pager as she ran. It was only when she was being carried piggyback after the hollow purification did she bother answering.

"Idiot, where you you think those myths about sneezes catapulting the soul out of the body came from?"


	3. Get off my roof Kurosaki

**Title: **Get off my roof Kurosaki

**Character/Pairing:** Ishida Uryuu, Ichigo's gang  
**Style: **Drabble  
**Genre: **Humour/Gen  
**Rating: **G  
**Theme:** 19. look to the western sky

* * *

The first day of his first year at highschool.

Ishida Uryuu was rather unperturbed by the whole experience, taking it all in and telling himself that this is what it would be like for the next three years of his life; instead of chatting about it to his friends.  
The fact he had no proper friends didn't really matter, he still would have kept it to himself, steeled his resolution and laughed internally at how easy the questions were.

He still almost smiled though when he saw sign-up sheets for various clubs including a handcrafts club.

Lunch, he decided, would be taken up on the roof in the pleasant spring sun and air. From a roof, one could see everywhere; from horizon to horizon; east, west, north and south. It was a view uninterrupted, one that only birds and those determined could see.  
That what his grandfather had always told him. Only the determined would ever bother to see such a wondrous view.

But why did the noisy louts from that morning have to be up there already?  
With those two as well; Keigo and Mizuiro from his previous school, those irritating brats.

He decided then, after realising that those four were in his class, that his highschool years were going to be very interesting.


	4. Mistake

**Title: **Mistake

**Character/Pairing:** Kurosaki Ichigo, Arisawa Tatsuki, mention of Orihime  
**Style: **Drabble  
**Genre: **Humour  
**Rating: **PG  
**Theme:** 9. fuzzy circumstance

* * *

Admittedly, Ichigo had been rather rushed when he had bought the gift for Orihime.  
He would also concede the point that what he had said in halting English wasn't necessarily the best choice in the clunky language.  
What he didn't agree with was that those two circumstances warranted the current scolding he was getting from Tatsuki though.

"Ichigo, you bought my best friend fur nipple warmers!! Nothing could be more inappropiate, you retard!"

Ichigo just hoped that Ishida would appreciate his girlfriend's present better than her best friend had.


	5. Fighting spirit

**Title:** Fighting Spirit

**Character/Pairing:** Arisawa Tatsuki  
**Style:** Drabble  
**Genre:** General  
**Rating:** PG  
**Theme:** July 02, 2007 - Some girls spit fire

* * *

It wasn't paying attention to her. Not much anyway. More like trying not to observe.

Yeah, that was it.

Tatsuki swept her attention back to what she was doing. Right foot forwards to catch the moustached guy on the chin, left fist hooking up to catch the side of his face. Very little resistance was offered as contact was made and the creep was sent crashing backwards.

_'Of course, it's a dream,'_ she thought as another attacker approached from the left and was dispatched with a flip. _'It'd explain the freaky looking dragon staring at me from the corner, never mind what my punches feels like.' _  
She risked another peek at the dragon, who was feigning interest by blowing bubbles out of it's nostrils. It flicked its eyes towards her for a second before realising she was watching it and hurriedly focused back onto the bubbles floating towards the ceiling.

That guilty glance spurred her onto clearing out the goons attacking her. She wanted to find out why that darned dragon was keeping an eye on her but pretending not to.  
Slamming the bald head of the last of them into the wall, Tatsuki wiped her palms on her practise clothes, _'Why is it always practise clothes?', _and stomped towards the dragon.  
It had stopped trying to sneak glance at her and was now staring quite squarely at her. The whiskers dropping down from its jaw twitched before it hauled itself up and sauntered the distance between them.

~You won't get your question answered this time little one,~ it replied sibilantly, enunciating the sounds in between, ~Nor the next. Far too early to find out this soon.~  
It finished talking, lowering its head back towards the floor and stalking off, the long body swaying from side to side as it walked.

~Far too early for you little one. Far too soon.~

The hissing sound trailed off into the beeping of an alarm, sunshine glaring into her room, as Tatsuki woke.


	6. Message

**Title:** Message

**Character/Pairing:** None as such but references Kurosaki Ichigo and Kuchiki Rukia in a vague manner  
**Style:** Ficlet  
**Genre:** General  
**Rating:** G  
**Prompt: **July 28, 2007 - The quiet things that no one ever knows

* * *

Midnight.

For once, Karakura town is quiet. The usually busy town in one of the wards of Tokyo is at a standstill; a car occasionally ticking along its roads, an office with a couple of late night workers and the few, ever open convenience stores. Houses lining the streets of the suburbs are dark, their lights turned off and all their inhabitants asleep.  
There's the clinic, just a few blocks away from the Minamikawase dojo. From the window over looking the street, the one above the faintly lit sign, the small noises of the house can be heard. The clock ticking, the wind shifting outside and the gentle hum of the house; the sound of her breathing behind the closet door, his mutterings and shufflings as he turns in his sleep.

There's peace here, even after a worrying thump rises from the desk and a loud snore errupts from down the hall. It's hard to believe this is one fo the few times it will be calm here. It certainly wasn't calm two weeks ago, when the clinic entrance was smashed in.  
An unsaid message floats in the air dangerously, one that may bring havoc upon the household again.

The dark butterfly stops beating it wings against the glass, something you'd never usually see, pulling back and fluttering gently, as if peering into the room. This message can be left unsaid for a while, it isn't that important.

Its wings beat and it's soaring over the city, wings flapping quietly in the moonlight before it dips and its dark wings disappear into the night.


End file.
